Is there another standalone freeware that I can use and that does not have such a limit? I need to be able to do searches/filters on file names and/or their contents/authors/creation dates etc. for all kind of files like e-mails, spreadsheets, word processor files, databases, text files, etc. etc.

Sometime back on my XP machine, I dumped Copernic for Windows Search 4.0 for Windows XP. I find this is much more convenient. A very similar search tool is included in Windows 7. This is a little more difficult to configure, but generally gets a good press.

about search with CDS for folder names

Another major weakness of Copernic (at least in the free version) is that they don't index FOLDER NAMES. If you have a storage scheme that involves the folder name, then you are SOL with Copernic.

A nice workaround within Copernic for searching a folder name, for instance named 'keyword', is to search for @location=keyword and looking for the search results under the All Tab. If the folder 'keyword' exists on your system this will show you the directory path to the searched folder as a separate search result and also get you the results of all the files contained in that folder. Only requirement for this workaround to be succesfull is the folder must contain at least one file. So this leaves only a (minor?) issue that CDS doesn't seem able to find empty folders.

A nice workaround within Copernic for searching a folder name, for instance named 'keyword', is to search for @location=keyword and looking for the search results under the All Tab. If the folder 'keyword' exists on your system this will show you the directory path to the searched folder as a separate search result and also get you the results of all the files contained in that folder. Only requirement for this workaround to be succesfull is the folder must contain at least one file. So this leaves only a (minor?) issue that CDS doesn't seem able to find empty folders.

Sounds convoluted. I dumped Copernic (they don;t update the app very much anyway) and switched to Windows Search, which DOES find folder names.